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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "planes"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Thu, 18 Jun 2015 01:12:00 PDTSen. Wyden Introduces Bill Aimed At Limiting FBI, US Marshals' Flying Spy PlanesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150617/09531431376/sen-wyden-introduces-bill-aimed-limiting-fbi-us-marshals-flying-spy-planes.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150617/09531431376/sen-wyden-introduces-bill-aimed-limiting-fbi-us-marshals-flying-spy-planes.shtml
It's safe to say no domestic surveillance program will be escaping legislators' attention in the post-Snowden era -- at least not for the forseeable future. It's only been a couple of weeks since news of the FBI's secret spy plane fleet made national headlines and there's already legislation in the works aimed at setting some… um… ground rules.

In a bill announced Wednesday, Wyden joins Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller on the Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act, which if passed would require warrants for the government to analyze and collect data gathered en masse via domestic airplane or surveillance drone.

“Technology has made it possible to conduct round-the-clock aerial surveillance. The law needs to keep up,” Wyden said in a statement. “Clear rules for when and how the federal government can watch Americans from the sky will provide critical certainty for the government, and help the unmanned aircraft industry reach its potential as an economic powerhouse in Oregon and the United States.”

It's not just the FBI's flying spies being targeted by this bill. It's also looking to dial back the US Marshals Service's use of airborne IMSI catchers, a.k.a. "dirtboxes," as well as targeting surveillance drones, picking up where 2013's stalled Drone Privacy Act left off.

Hopefully, the bill will force a bit more transparency about use of these surveillance techniques. A warrant requirement is a nice thought, although it's hard to imagine what sort of warrant would cover a "search" that involves flying a plane in continuous circles over a small area of a city.

Considering the lowered expectation of privacy in public areas, the warrant requirement is going to be a tough sell. If it does stick, it will at least ensure deployments are targeted, rather than just exploratory. There's an opportunity here to force better and more detailed reporting of deployments, as well as significantly limiting the use of flying surveillance vehicles by eliminating exploitable loopholes.

The bill also would prevent government agencies from running footage obtained by drones or planes through facial/pattern recognition software in hopes of stumbling across untargeted suspects. It also would forbid law enforcement agencies from bypassing restrictions and reporting requirements by hiring private contractors to perform their illegal surveillance for them.

Five years ago, this sort of legislation would be dead on arrival, with deferential nods to terrorism and the War on Drugs replacing any serious consideration of the public's privacy. Thanks to the Snowden's leaks, any bill seeking to limit domestic surveillance now has a fighting chance, with even the reluctant administration forced to make more concessions to privacy than it would under other circumstances.

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]]>hacking-away-at-the-surveillance-overgrowthhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150617/09531431376Thu, 26 Mar 2015 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: Flying With The Greatest Of EaseMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100805/15013110511/dailydirt-flying-with-greatest-ease.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100805/15013110511/dailydirt-flying-with-greatest-ease.shtmlairplane should look like. Ask any kid to draw a plane, and you'll probably get familiar results. However, this doesn't mean we've reached the end of novel plane designs. Plenty of unconventional planes are being designed and tested, and here are just a few.

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100805/15013110511Fri, 14 Nov 2014 05:58:00 PSTFeds Put Fake Cell Towers On Planes, Spied On Tons Of Innocent AmericansMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141113/16292029131/feds-put-fake-cell-towers-planes-spied-tons-innocent-americans.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141113/16292029131/feds-put-fake-cell-towers-planes-spied-tons-innocent-americans.shtmlspying on tons of innocent Americans by putting fake mobile phone towers on airplanes and scooping up all sorts of data from people who thought they were connecting to regular mobile phone towers.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them—which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration information.

The technology in the two-foot-square device enables investigators to scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, collecting their identifying information and general location, these people said.

We have, of course, reported for a while now on so-called Stingray devices, which mimic mobile phone towers on the ground (and have noted that Stingray is just one brand of a few such devices, known as IMSI catchers), but putting them on special planes and flying them around would allow law enforcement agencies to get a lot more information on a lot more people. Given that law enforcement efforts like this are supposed to be narrowly targeted towards those actually suspected of breaking the law, this seems like a massive 4th Amendment abuse, creating mass surveillance programs for law enforcement with little real oversight or control.

While it may not be entirely surprising that this is happening, it is yet another surveillance program being done with zero public transparency, zero public debate and zero public input. That's a huge concern as we've seen time and time again how such programs get abused.

And, while the WSJ doesn't come out and say it, it certainly sounds like it got this info from a concerned whistleblower inside the US Marshals Service:

Within the Marshals Service, some have questioned the legality of such operations and the internal safeguards, these people said. They say scooping up of large volumes of information, even for a short period, may not be properly understood by judges who approve requests for the government to locate a suspect’s phone.

Some within the agency also question whether people scanning cellphone signals are doing enough to minimize intrusions into the phone system of other citizens, and if there are effective procedures in place to safeguard the handling of that data.

As such programs keep getting disclosed, think of how many such other programs there are that we just don't know about?

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]]>because-surveillance-is-fun,-yohttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141113/16292029131Mon, 4 Aug 2014 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: Waiting In Line Isn't FunMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100705/14594810069/dailydirt-waiting-line-isnt-fun.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100705/14594810069/dailydirt-waiting-line-isnt-fun.shtmlRetailers of all kinds are interested in this kind of math because it can improve customer satisfaction and get more products out the door. Apple reduces long cashier lines with employees who can accept payments anywhere in its stores. Fry's Electronics has the giant single line that feeds into a massive array of cashiers (aka the serpentine line). There are self-checkout lanes at the grocery store, but there's no silver bullet to eliminate waiting in lines. Here are just a few more links on this problem of civilization.

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100416/1618459045Thu, 27 Jun 2013 10:35:51 PDTPilots Want To Know Why The DHS/CBP Are Searching Their Planes Without WarrantsTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130619/18242823539/pilots-want-to-know-why-dhscbp-are-searching-their-planes-without-warrants.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130619/18242823539/pilots-want-to-know-why-dhscbp-are-searching-their-planes-without-warrants.shtml
Government agencies continue to operate under the assumption that warrants, reasonable suspicion and the like are luxuries that our nation can no longer afford, not while we're under constant attack by terrorists and drug smugglers.

With a growing number of reports from law-abiding pilots stopped by armed federal agents on the ramp, their aircraft searched by federal agents, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection remains silent, and outrage is building.

AOPA is questioning CBP’s authority to conduct the searches, and demanding a response from officials at the highest level. There has been no meaningful response to date from CBP to Freedom of Information Act requests filed months ago by AOPA and affected pilots.

The FOIA requests filed by AOPA date back to February 12th. The CBP told the association not to expect a response until August 12th, at the earliest. The AOPA has given the CBP until July 20th to produce the requested documents or it will be taking its case to court, as well as "advising Congress and congressional committees" about the unexcused delays.

One of the FOIA requests seeks information on the warrantless search of pilot Gabriel Silverstein's plane, which occurred on May 5th. Silverstein's plane was actually searched twice by federal agents. The first search was more perfunctory, with DHS agents replacing the normal FAA agents during a routine ramp check. The second, however, was much more intrusive.

[A] fuel stop, one of many made during a business trip from New Jersey to California and back in the Cirrus SR22 that Silverstein shares ownership of, proved much more troubling: Federal agents called out the dog.

A search lasting more than two hours produced nothing incriminating. Silverstein was free to go, but he and his husband of nine years, Angel, were on their own to re-pack luggage, the contents of which had been emptied along with the rest of what could be removed from inside the aircraft. Though more needs to be learned to understand the true legality, or constitutionality, of that search, agents told Silverstein he had no choice.

Although the agents involved identified themselves as only "homeland security," Silverstein recognized their uniforms' insignia to be that of Customs and Border Protection. (He also received a business card from one of them which identified that particular agent as CBP.) So, what are CBP agents doing searching a plane in Iowa City, miles from any international border? Silverstein had a registered IFR flight plan, which had received clearance at every stop, detailing every leg of his flight up to that point -- a flight that saw him travel from New Jersey to California (and part of the way back) with various stops for fuel, all without leaving US airspace.

The DHS knows but it's not saying, at least not yet. (Any sobering findings will presumably be heavily redacted.) But judging from the agents' conversations with Silverstein, it would appear they believed he was smuggling drugs.

Silverstein said the agents in Iowa City urged him to confess to possessing a small amount of marijuana, suggesting such a confession could cut the whole process short. (Silverstein told AOPA he is a teetotaler, and never indulges much less possesses marijuana, nor did he have any reason to believe others had put marijuana in the aircraft.) Silverstein said agents told him they believed marijuana should be legal, but they had to enforce federal law.

Searching a plane without a warrant and finding nothing is not enforcing federal law, no matter how the agent playing "good cop" attempted to portray it. Encouraging a person to falsely incriminate himself is not enforcing federal law, no matter how much the agents would have preferred to be back by quitting time. But on top of this dubious definition of "enforcement" lies an even more dubious definition of "reasonable suspicion."

He said the agents “clearly suggested” they were interested in his aircraft because he had stopped in Colorado, a state that recently legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.

If you think that logic is weak, there's more. The Atlantic details a couple more episodes of DHS/CBP agents vs. private plane pilots/owners. Larry Gaines, flew out of California, landing at a small, rural airstrip in Oklahoma. He was headed to dinner with a friend when he realized he had left his eyeglass case back at the airport. He returned to retrieve it and was greeted by local law enforcement who prevented him from returning to his plane and informed him the DHS was on the way. From Gaines' account of the event:

2 black Suburbans drove up at some point during this time, plus more Cordell Police and Washita County Sheriffs. All told, there were 3 police cars, 3 sheriff's cars, and 2 Suburbans with black windows from what I was later told was DEA. The officers/agents in the Suburbans were dressed in what appeared to be riot gear - body armor and helmets, I believe. They had shotguns and at least one German Shepherd dog. One of the local sheriffs was definitely in full SWAT regalia. It was over 100 degrees F. I counted 20 officers, deputies, and agents. Seven were dressed & equipped, literally, for armed conflict...

A large business jet arrived and circled overhead for the next 60-90 minutes. A King Air 200 [a sizable twin-engine turboprop plane] arrived and landed. 2 Border Patrol agents got out.

That's a lot of "response" for a pilot with a clean criminal record. The agents on the scene were unable to explain their actions with anything more specific than Gaines' flight fit a "suspicious profile." Gaines asked for details about the "profile" and received this in reply: "You started in California and flew west to east."

This almost sounds made up on the spot. After all, flying out of California doesn't present many options for a pilot who wishes to remain in the Continental US, but still leave the state. But if Gaines fits the "profile" by flying west to east, how does Silverstein fit in? Sure, he left California traveling east before his run-in with federal agents, but it was part of a return flight to New Jersey, which started east to west.

The common thread seems to be drugs. An agent pointedly asked Gaines, "There's a lot of drugs in Stockton, isn't there?" (This despite the fact that Gaines' flight originated in Calaveras. His plane is registered in Stockton.) Silverstein flew west to east, returning to New Jersey, with a stop in Marijuana, CO.

Both pilots returned to their planes to find law enforcement waiting for them. Silverstein found the search to be already underway by the time he got to his plane. Gaines was greeted by local cops, which soon swelled into a small army. Gaines, however, refused to let the agents search his plane without a warrant. The agents backed down only when he agreed to allowing a drug-sniffing dog to walk his plane.

Under what authority these combined forces are searching planes without a warrant is unclear. The DEA would seem to be the most interested party if it's indeed drugs these agents are looking for. But these two episodes show the DHS/CBP clearly is taking the lead. The latter two agencies aren't too concerned about warrants or constitutional rights, seeing as the so-called "Constitution-free zone" is still in effect and the DHS has already gone on record as regarding Fourth Amendment rights to be an impediment to innate pureness of an agent's "hunches" or "intuition." But in these cases, along with nearly a dozen others, the pilots involved have never crossed a border, breached restricted airspace or otherwise done anything illegal.

It almost appears as though these agencies would prefer private pilots travel like everyone else: routed through TSA agents and safely aboard FAA-tracked airliners. So much for being able to move freely around the country. Traveling within our borders now seems to be as suspicious as making domestic phone calls.

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]]>warrants are becoming nothing more than a fond memoryhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130619/18242823539Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: Weapons In The SkyJoyce Hunghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/01552013459/dailydirt-weapons-sky.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/01552013459/dailydirt-weapons-sky.shtml

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110208/19473313015Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:23:40 PSTWhile TSA Looks At You Naked, Child Finds Loaded Gun Magazine Left On Southwest PlaneMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/17282212000/while-tsa-looks-you-naked-child-finds-loaded-gun-magazine-left-southwest-plane.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/17282212000/while-tsa-looks-you-naked-child-finds-loaded-gun-magazine-left-southwest-plane.shtmlany evidence that its efforts have actually made air travel any safer and continues to defend its security efforts as necessary, CNN is reporting that a child on a Southwest flight found a loaded gun magazine in a seatback pocket, which was kicked to the floor as the child climbed over the seats. Apparently, a law enforcement official (not an air marshal) who was allowed to take the clip on the plane, left it in the seat. Obviously, this is not a failure of the TSA, in that the mistake was by the law enforcement agent who left the clip, but the point is that it's impossible to protect against all threats on a plane, and many of the TSA's actions seem to be based on the fiction that it is possible. I have nothing against legitimate security that makes us safer, but there's little indication that that's what we're getting from the TSA.

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]]>feel-safer?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101123/17282212000Mon, 4 Oct 2010 11:46:54 PDTPlane Finder Phone App Called An 'Aid To Terrorism,' Even If It's Just Using Public DataMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/01091111266/plane-finder-phone-app-called-an-aid-to-terrorism-even-if-it-s-just-using-public-data.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/01091111266/plane-finder-phone-app-called-an-aid-to-terrorism-even-if-it-s-just-using-public-data.shtmlSlashdot points us to the news that security experts and the US Dept. of Homeland Security are apparently worried about an application called Plane Finder, which is available on the iPhone and Android phones. Among other things, it lets you point your phone at an airplane in the sky, and it will provide info on that plane, including the height and speed, as well as its destination, and a "likely course." The fear, of course, is that terrorists could potentially use this to shoot down a plane.

Of course, in blaming this app, everyone seems to be missing the real target. This app is using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcasts (ADS-B), which is transmitted by many aircraft these days, and can apparently be read with a $200 receiver. In other words, if terrorists wanted that data, they'd go out and get that $200 receiver. The "problem" (if there really is one) isn't the Plane Finder app (which actually sounds kind of cool), but the fact that all that data is being made available publicly. Blaming the app sort of misses the point, because if the data is available so easily, you can bet those who wish to do harm with it, have already figured that out. In the meantime, the Plane Finder app itself doesn't appear to actually have that many downloads. The report claims 2,000 sales on iTunes, and in the Android store, it looks like less than 500 have been purchased. Of course, now that it's in the news...

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]]>look,-up-there-in-the-sky,-it's-a-cluehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101004/01091111266Fri, 8 Aug 2008 17:58:00 PDTBefore We Ban Mobile Phones On Planes, Why Not See If They're Really A Problem?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080808/0240241932.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080808/0240241932.shtmlsilly for Congress to pass an outright ban of talking on mobile phones in-flight, but that probably won't stop the effort from going forward. However, new research is showing how this may be even less necessary than many assume. First, contrary to the idea that most people are worried about in-flight phone use, most younger users seem to actually support it.

As for the concern that it would just be really "annoying"? It turns out that when you look at actual tests (what a concept), this turns out not to be a problem. Passengers develop their own etiquette for keeping quiet and not pissing off other passengers. In other words, social pressures can handle most of the worst scenarios without the need for any sort of law that bans it in all situations. But, of course, this is Congress we're talking about. They're not huge fans of basing laws on what actually happens, but on what will generate the best headlines.

Also, just to respond to some of the misconception in the comments to the previous post: the potential ban has absolutely nothing to do with the technology issues related to using mobiles on airplanes. It's entirely about the etiquette/annoyance issue. Most of those technical issues have been worked out by putting a "picocell" on the airplane itself to redirect the voice traffic in a more efficient manner, rather than having the phones try to connect directly to towers on the ground.